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4-1-2011

An Engineer's Guide to Applying Appropriate Technology

Jacob Felser
Jacob.Felser@alumni.olin.edu

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Felser, Jacob, "An Engineer's Guide to Applying Appropriate Technology" (2011). 2011 AHS Capstone Projects. Paper 21. http://digitalcommons.olin.edu/ahs_capstone_2011/21

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AN ENGINEERS GUIDE TO APPLYING APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY

By Jake Felser May 2nd, 2011

Cover: A worker rides on the back of a milk collection truck in the Azuero region of Panama. He is responsible for making sure the milk cans make it to the processing facility and back to each farm every morning. The photo was taken by the author.

Chapter 1: An Argument for Action ................................................................................................................................. 6 An Unstable System ......................................................................................................................................................... 10 The Problem(s) .................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Appropriate ......................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Technology .......................................................................................................................................................................... 12 The Empathetic Engineer ................................................................................................................................................ 6

CONTENTS

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Chapter 2: Defining Appropriate Technology............................................................................................................ 11 Engineering ......................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Chapter 3: Methodology ..................................................................................................................................................... 17 Project Success Criteria .................................................................................................................................................. 15 Appropriate Design Principles .................................................................................................................................... 17 Explicitly Identify Stakeholders and Value Proposition(s) ........................................................................ 17 Quantify (and Be Comfortable With) Uncertainty ......................................................................................... 18 Build Capacity................................................................................................................................................................ 19 Utilize Untrained Experts...................................................................................................................................... 20 Iterate Productively .................................................................................................................................................... 20 Deliver a Top-Quality Product (Dont Reinvent the Wheel) ...................................................................... 21

To Profit or Not to Profit (Monetarily) .................................................................................................................... 22 Casting a Net ....................................................................................................................................................................... 23 Developing Tools .............................................................................................................................................................. 25 Adoption is Hard (In a Good Way)............................................................................................................................. 27 Leveraging and Building Credibility ......................................................................................................................... 29 Building a Team................................................................................................................................................................. 28 Working in a Busy Space ............................................................................................................................................... 31 Chapter 4: Implementation ............................................................................................................................................... 27

Moving Forward..................................................................................................................................................................... 33

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................................................ 34

The goal of this guide is simply to provide a starting point for discussion of the development of appropriate technologies and ventures. The examples in this guide come primarily from my personal experience. I was deeply involved with developing the solar-powered milk chiller at Promethean Power Systems as well as being one of the first students to participate in Olins Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship (ADE) curriculum. I also lived in Panama for a semester, researching and experiencing the development and adoption of technology in that country. My experiences are not universal, but I hope that by discussing them I can persuade young engineering students that developing appropriate technology is a valid career path and help them navigate it successfully.

Why focus on engineers? First and foremost, because I believe engineers are very important. Many decisions of an engineer or designer are magnified thousands or millions of times by mass production. This gives them leverage to make real, material changes. Secondly, there is a lack of focus on engineering within the sustainable design literature. There are countless books and manifestos telling people to design but there are very few that encourage us to engineer. I believe that engineering should be more than mechanics and materials and controls: it should include the human component. There is a slow shift in engineering education towards including this holistic focus, but it is not happening rapidly enough.

This guide is written for a group of people who possess a unique skill-set: engineering students. These people are well-qualified to help solve some of the worlds most pressing issues, particularly through the development of technology. The idea of appropriate technology is to develop products that are perfectly tailored to a specific context in order to enable a positive change in a users life. This can be as difficult a problem as the hardest technical task. It is impossible to evaluate these products in the abstract, without accounting for their roles in larger systems of interaction, behavior, and culture. 1 Creating a product that fits into these more nebulous systems is much harder than simply making a part fit into another part correctly it requires developing a deep understanding of a shifting, human context, filled with all of the good and bad that make us who we are.

INTRODUCTION

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us begin. Lila Watson

Pilloton, 6

Disclaimer
If you intend to save the world through engineering, put this guide down now. The world does not need to be saved at all. There are people in the world that could use better products and services, and perhaps you could help develop those but to say that you want to save the world is not a well-considered goal. The best that any engineer can hope for is to help others while helping themselves, and hopefully this guide can help with that.

As an engineering student or professional, there is no shortage of job opportunities. There are rarely compelling technical or monetary incentives to use your talents to help tackle the difficult problems of underserved end-users either half a world away or even in your own community. The median salary for a traditional petroleum engineer is over $105,000/year 2, with nuclear and aerospace engineers close behind and the rest of traditional engineering lagging only slightly more. Traditional engineering jobs provide plenty of technical challenge, and are less emotionally complex. The success criteria for traditional careers are well understood. Why would anyone delve into the engineering of appropriate technology of their own free will? A common stereotype of engineers is that of the cubicle-bound, pocket protector wearing nerd. This engineer is smart and tech-savvy, but lacks context and empathy. He or she focuses on the technology to a fault. The primary motivation is overcoming the technical challenge, not the value of a product to the end user. It is easy to be a successful and well-compensated engineer without ever exploring the wider world around you.

CHAPTER 1: AN ARGUMENT FOR ACTION

THE EMPATHETIC ENGINEER

The engineer, reading this, might ask how to begin understanding the various issues that need to be addressed. It is a valid question. There are many metrics for evaluating the state of our planet: environmental metrics, health metrics, economic metrics and more. Depending on what you care to look at, you can reach a surprisingly varied conclusion regarding our future. Traditional engineers (and Americans in general 3) can look at the same health statistics as an international aid worker and reach a completely different conclusion about the urgency of what needs to be done. It doesnt mean that we are callous or do not care, it just illuminates the inherent difficulty of empathizing with strangers. Empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and being of another person without having them explicitly communicated. 4 Empathy (or lack thereof) forms the basis for how humans interact with each other. As President Obama elegantly stated: [It] is at the heart of my moral code, and it is how I understand the Golden Rule---not simply as a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else's shoes and see through their eyes. 5

But, the wide world is an interesting place. It is, with all its nuances and imperfections and transients and nonlinearities, the largest and most fascinating system we know of. Engineering thought routinely deals with system theory, and engineers relish complexity. Engineers know how to get things built, because that is their job. Their skills are essential to addressing the most urgent issues facing the world.

Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition In my experience only! 4 "Empathy." Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary 5 Obama, 66-69.
2 3

Empathy with those in need inspires people to help people. Without empathy, very little aid work would ever get done. But empathy is also rooted in understanding the facts. As you read about people in need, put yourself in their shoes. Imagine what life would be like if you had to worry about getting enough food on the table (not for comforts sake, but to stay alive). Imagine if infant mortality was commonplace, and those closest to you could die from diseases that are nearly unknown to those on top of the economic pyramid. Life would be a little different. There are many ways to try and sort out the problems facing the world. One way to categorize them is by contextual understanding: problems can be close or far away from home. Home, in this sense, means ones context. For instance, a problem could be physically close but metaphorically far away if a particularly isolated engineer has little understanding of the surrounding cultural considerations. Yet both of these types of problems are hard to visualize, for different reasons. A difficulty with local, close to home issues is in recognizing and facing the existence of the problem. Few want to admit that they live their life in ignorance or denial of problems around them, in their own community or in their own country.

Empathy is something that many of us are not entirely good at. How many times has each of us walked past a homeless person in the street and felt no sense of guilt? It is at first difficult to watch, but after a while that feeling fades. How many times have we heard about genocide, starvation or disaster in a country that wasnt ours, and done nothing?

THE PROBLEM(S)

Figure 1: World map with territories scaled according to the proportion of people worldwide living on the equivalent of US $10/day or less in each territory. India is huge! Source: http://www.worldmapper.org. 6

The issues that fall far away are generally hard to imagine due to their scale and their distance from our home context. It is possible for someone in a U.S. engineering context to live their
6

There are many, many other maps here that are worth looking at.

The progress of international development is often measured by the yardstick of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Unfortunately, reading the MDG progress report is often a depressing reminder of how much still needs to be done. It is a defining document that describes why, in fact, the world needs fixing. There are eight main goals covered in the document, and the goals and some statistics about their current states of progress are summarized below 8:

life without knowing these problems exist. 7 These problems are often larger and more complex than domestic issues, and are not easily tractable. They are difficult to internalize because of their distance, both physically and culturally, from the context of the engineer.

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger a. 51% of sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than $1.25 per day b. 27% of the developing world population lives in poverty c. 97% of the global mortality risk from natural disaster is in the developing world d. 830 million people regularly go hungry, and the number is increasing e. 42 million people are currently displaced by conflict 2. Achieve universal primary education a. The number of new teachers needed in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve universal primary education is equal to the number of teachers currently employed in that area b. Primary school enrollment in the developing world is currently at 89%, but progress is stalling 3. Promote gender equality and empower women a. Girls are globally underrepresented in the education system b. Women are not paid as much as men, nor is their employment as stable c. Globally, only 1 in 4 senior officials or managers are women 4. Reduce the child mortality rate a. 7% of children in the developing world die by the age of 5 b. 8.8 million children die per year nearly half of these deaths are by four main causes: pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and AIDS 5. Improve maternal health a. 5% of girls aged 15-19 in developing countries give birth per year b. In sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, most women give birth without skilled care 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases a. HIV/AIDS is the worlds leading infectious killer, causing approximately 2 million deaths per year b. In many countries with high levels of HIV infection, very few people have knowledge of the virus or its transmission (less than 30%) c. In most developing countries, less than half of young people use condoms during high-risk sex d. Malaria causes nearly 1 million global deaths per year, mostly in Africa 7. Ensure environmental sustainability a. 13 million hectares of forest per year are destroyed or converted for other use

This is probably being mitigated by an influx of foreigners into the engineering industry and engineering schools. In many areas it is becoming harder and harder to stay isolated. This is a good thing. 8 The Millennium Development Goals Report, 2010. All of the statistics in this section are taken from the report. If you are interested, there are many more fascinating tidbits in the complete report this is only the tip of the iceberg.
7

It is difficult to internalize what these numbers mean without understanding the people behind the numbers. One such person is an eighteen year-old Panameo named Miguel who lives with his much younger wife in a single room cinder-block house outside of the town of Las Tablas. They do not have a real kitchen, bedroom, or bathroom. He works twelve hour days at a chicken slaughterhouse, and when I got to know them she was at home, pregnant (the baby has since been born and is healthy). They rely on his meager income and on her family, who are subsistence farmers in the neighboring hills. They are constantly vulnerable both fiscally and physically, and unfortunately their lives are more the norm than the exception in most of the world. You do not have to meet many people like Miguel to understand the real significance behind the statistics given so blandly in the MDG report.

These are only numbers on a page, but to some extent they represent the state of the world and can help illuminate the lives within it. Perhaps some of the numbers are too large to be comprehensible. The number one billion, in particular, is hard to visualize. One billion seconds is nearly 32 years. One billion inches is more than halfway around the world. Nearly one billion people regularly go hungry. One billion people in our world live in an urban slum. Two point six billion people in the world lack access to basic sanitation. Each one of those billions is a person, with a story and a family.

b. Nearly 17,000 plants and animals are known to be threatened with extinction c. In the developing world, only 84% of people have access to improved sources of drinking water d. 2.6 billion people around the world lack access to basic sanitation facilities e. 1 billion people live in urban slums 8. Develop a global partnership for development a. Only 15% of the developing world has access to the internet b. 4.6 billion people have cell phones (67 out of every 100 people)

Figure 2: A typical urban/industrial market area in Pune, India. Photo is by the author.

One way to think about the world, and one that might resonate with the audience of this document, is from a systems engineering perspective. Systems engineering signifies a way of thinking about a complex system of components (the space station is a canonical example) that seeks to minimize the undesirable qualities such as cost and weight. There are many ways that systems can perform poorly, and system optimization can be extremely complex. Throughout this document, we will return to the analogy of the world as a system.

AN UNSTABLE SYSTEM

10

Analogy

In general, idealized engineering systems have only a few degrees of freedom, and they tend to not be heavily interrelated. This means that there are only a few axes in which a system can move freely a ball resting on a plate, for instance, has two degrees of freedom because it can roll in two dimensions. The fewer degrees of freedom a system contains, the more predictable the system behavior. This is because there are more constraints on the state changes that can occur. It is possible for a system to be stable in one degree of freedom and unstable in another (a ball resting in a saddle, for instance).

Figure 3: A ball resting in the above saddle would be stable in one axis and unstable in the other. As dimensions are added to this system, it becomes more and more representative of real-world complexity. Photo is from http://www-math.unice.fr/~dolean/saddles/.

The world, when considered from a systems perspective, has an incredible number of degrees of freedom, and they tend to be related in a complex manner. The world is an interwoven system of systems, and it is possible for the world to change in a limitless number of ways with many connections between these axes of change for instance, given a small change in the way rickshaws are dispatched, families could eat better, live longer, and be less happy with their lives. The world is a complicated place. While a cynical analyst might suppose that the world is a system that is functioning as well as possible, this is probably not the case. In the next few chapters we will define the methods of control we can apply to the world/system, define the criteria for stability/success, and show how to actually implement these methods.

It is surprisingly difficult to define some of the critical terms used when talking about appropriate technology creation, yet it is vitally important to the framing of the problem that the definitions are concrete and that everyone is on the same page before delving too deeply into the various methodologies. In this section, appropriate technology engineering is defined, and a success criterion for such projects is suggested. Appropriate an appropriate design is uniquely (and in all facets) meant for a group of people who are underserved or have diminished autonomy in some aspect of their life, particularly economically.

CHAPTER 2: DEFINING APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY

Key Definitions

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Engineering appropriate engineering is the development of an appropriate technology. In many cases, this can fall outside of the traditional definition of engineering.

Technology an appropriate technology can take nearly any form, from innovative high tech device to business innovation to an adaptation or adoption of existing techniques.

Appropriateness has many facets: cultural, financial, environmental, technical, and more but they all relate to the people involved. For each facet, the technology must match the user. Appropriate is therefore highly specific depending on the target audience for a product. Many students of design also equate appropriate design with design for the underserved or those with diminished autonomy, and we will use this definition here. One oft-cited metric for defining an appropriate target end-user is Dr. Paul Polaks famous 90% rule: The majority of the worlds designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the worlds customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%. 9

APPROPRIATE

The implication, of course, is that in order to be appropriate a designer (in this case) must focus their efforts on the bottom 90% of the worlds income bracket. For a designer in a developed country, this generally means focusing their efforts in more impoverished developing countries in order to achieve the greatest scale of impact and address the largest problems. Emily Pilloton, in her manifesto Design Revolution, suggests that the appropriate tag has almost become synonymous with developing products for the impoverished residents of the developing world. 10
Design For the Other 90% | Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Pilloton, 38. This manifesto and product exhibition is a must-read for the budding appropriate technology engineer!
9 10

This attitude generally reflects an us-versus-them mentality, almost reminiscent of the white mans burden of earlier times. 11 It also tends to result in designers and engineers working well outside their comfort zone and in situations where they do not have an intuitive feel for the context around them (something that goes against the grain of appropriateness). As Pilloton goes on to suggest:

12

In some ways, focusing at home is the most appropriate thing designers and engineers can do. 13 It is the easiest and least wasteful situation to work in (flights around the globe are not exactly carbon-neutral). It removes a large part of the language barrier, minimizes cultural misunderstandings, and provides those trying to act with a somewhat more known set of resources at their disposal. Collaboration can go a long way towards minimizing risk in designing across contexts, but it is still important to realize that designing for anyone who is not oneself is an intrinsically risky exercise, and that no matter how hard you strive as a designer to understand a context, it is unlikely that you will ever fully grasp the complexities of a situation in a life that you have not lived.

Before traveling half way around the world, look for local design opportunities: Who is not being served in your own city? Could a design investment in your community help support a more productive and cohesive economy and culture? 12

For the purposes of this paper, the appropriate part of appropriate technology will be defined as meaning that the design is uniquely (and in all facets) meant for a group of people who are underserved or have diminished autonomy in some aspect of their life, particularly economically. This group can be local, or they can be across the globe. It could include such diverse groups as rural milk farmers in India 14 or impoverished residents of Greensboro, Alabama 15. Appropriate, in this paper, will also be required to signify that the group doing the design or engineering is qualified and well-suited to do the job. It would clearly not be appropriate to have a group of people with little experience with a given technology or culture attempting to work within that context. The toughest part to nail down in the engineering of appropriate technology is undoubtedly the technology. We traditionally think of high-technology and technology as being synonymous, but this is not true in a developing world context. The goal is to apply engineering thought processes to solve problems for real people, whether they be next door or across the world.
11

TECHNOLOGY

Pilloton, 38. This refers to the idea, popular around the turn of the 20th century, that there was an implicit mandate for the white man to help the noble savages of the world. The concept is extraordinarily patronizing and is generally disparaged today. 12 Pilloton, 38 13 Pilloton is one example of someone who after much thought, decided to focus at home. Her base is now in North Carolina, where she runs a multitude of projects. Other groups, such as MITs FabLabs, also have local components that aim to serve underserved nearby populations while also extending internationally. 14 Promethean Power Systems is developing a solar powered milk chiller for these farmers, and meeting with some success. 15 The Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship (ADE) class at Olin is focusing nearly half its effort in developing solutions for a community partner in Greensboro.

Unfortunately, it is a closely held belief of many engineers (particularly students) that success is to create the most cutting-edge technology, to innovate, to invent. We are constantly battered with the message that innovation is the key to national security, to wealth, and possibly even to happiness. Innovation and invention are increasingly conflated with high technology, and invention has been front and center on the national stage in the face of increasing economic competition from overseas. As Thomas Friedman recently commented to Tom Brokaw on NBCs Meet the Press:

With this in mind, technology takes on a new meaning. There is no reason that business or social innovations could not be considered technology for our purposes. There are countless examples of appropriate technology of all types, from simple clay water filters to methods of structuring a refugee camp 16 to micro-lending practices 17 to venture models 18 to high tech laptops. 19 These technologies are sometimes created by design or engineering firms 20, sometimes by students or educational programs 21 and sometimes by the users themselves. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.

13

Friedman advocates the invention of renewable energy solutions as a way to preserve our way of life, and his viewpoint is increasingly popular. But his viewpoint still equates invention with technology. Invention as it is generally thought of does not necessarily help real people in an appropriate way. To truly innovate for people, our inventions must spread beyond technology to encompass ways of interacting with the end-user, methods of selling the product, and countless other complexities that are not generally considered. Creating the most advanced gadget without any thought of the surrounding context, while an interesting engineering exercise, probably does not create new opportunities for those in the most need.

America isn't sitting there saying, "Invent, invent, invent new, renewable energy," they're saying, "drill, drill, drill." And you know we do need to exploit our domestic resource. I'm actually not against drilling. What I'm against is making that the center of our focus, because we are on the eve of a new revolution, the energy technology revolution.

With this in mind, it is important to realize that invention and innovation as they relate to technology are still critical they just need to be reframed. As Pilloton mentions, we tend to talk about the iPhone and the newest Dyson vacuum cleaner as feats of innovation, but we would hesitate to call a DIY water filter in rural Africa innovative. 22 As long as engineering students keep entering industry with this contemporary viewpoint on invention, the field of appropriate technology engineering will have a tough time attracting the top engineering talent that befits its cause.
Pilloton, 32. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cuny/ for a fascinating read on the man who tried to save the world and was killed doing it. 17 "Kiva - About Kiva. 18 "Rickshaw Bank - The Concept." 19 "One Laptop per Child (OLPC): Mission. 20 Such as IDEO, Frog Design, Continuum, Cooper Perkins, and many more 21 Such as ADE (Olin), d.school (Stanford), and D-Lab (MIT) 22 Pilloton, 34
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Appropriate design is a common term that describes the act of creating products and services for the less fortunate. There is a large body of literature on sustainable and appropriate design, and much history behind the movement. It is beyond the scope of this guide, but the interested reader can delve deeply. See the introduction to Walkers Sustainable by Design for a good overview of how design thinking has evolved over the last hundred years and continues to evolve and grow. Appropriate design is also starting to include other subfields such as social entrepreneurship. 23 There are many situations where technological innovation and ingenuity need to be paired with innovative or specially constructed business models in order to provide a sustainable solution. 24
Ethnography Design Engineering Venture

ENGINEERING

14

Figure 4: A traditional view of engineering as it fits into the process of developing a venture (time is flowing to the right). One reason why appropriate technology is so exciting is that it requires the engineer to step out of this single chevron and deeply understand the other parts of the process.

Engineering is generally defined as the application of scientific principles to practical uses. 25 It is actually quite difficult to draw a distinction between design and engineering in the creation of appropriate technology, when technology is defined to broadly include systems that are not generally considered engineering systems. Pilloton defines appropriate technology engineering as being a discipline guided by three basic principles: 26 1. Building as a generative process 2. The optimization of local resources 3. The use of craft production as economic empowerment

If you consider technology to include non-engineering systems, this definition becomes more flexible and the role of engineering starts to blur with the role of design. Building could include the building of communities or the building of communication channels. Local resources could include the local people. Engineering is not just the creation of technology; it is a method of problemsolving. 27
Pilloton, 17. Design for social impact and social entrepreneurship are, in a sense, made for each other and are so closely intertwined that they are often synonymous. 24 Pilloton defines social entrepreneurship as: the application of entrepreneurial business practices and principles to organize, create, and manage a venture that both incites social change and makes a profit for some or all stakeholders. 25 "Engineering." The American Heritage Science Dictionary. 26 Pilloton, 36 27 And one used often in many places, particularly in the developing world where resource constraints are more common and encourage engineering innovation on a daily basis.
23

The same problem is apparent in analyzing our unstable world/system. Some definitions of success already exist, mostly for specific projects or cases. In the corporate world, the triple bottom line is often used as a justification to be more appropriate: people, planet and profit. 28 The triple bottom line symbolizes that it is indeed possible to justify a corporate action based on something other than profit. In the academic world, the success criteria are generally fairly focused. In Olins Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship class, students begin by focusing on having an impact in reducing poverty. In practice, this both devolves into other goals (improving comfort for rickshaw pullers, for instance, does not directly reduce poverty) and generates sub-criteria for success. In particular, every solution is analyzed through the double lens of scalability and sustainability. Sustainability represents the ability of the solution to stand on its own over time. There is no way to make a real impact in making lives better if the designed solution must be maintained by the designer in order to ensure consistent success. Sustainability encompasses all aspects of responsibility and foresight: environmental, social, economic, cultural, and humanitarian. 29

In most engineering systems, the basic success criteria are straightforward. Keep the Segway upright. Keep the ball on the table. Yet one of the trickiest parts of control theory is defining what is optimal for a given system and method of control. Sometimes it is difficult to know what quantity needs to be minimized or maximized. Is it best to create a controller that uses the least energy or a controller that moves most precisely and reaches equilibrium the fastest?

PROJECT SUCCESS CRITERIA

15

Analogy

In our control systems analogy, sustainability is analogous to stability. That is, if you push the system and send it off, will it maintain its state without extra input? A Segway is stable it will stay standing by itself until the batteries run out. Scalability is another key factor in determining the success of a solution. It represents the ability of the designed solution to be adapted and adopted in other parts of the world. If a system is highly scalable, it is possible to make a very large impact very quickly.

Analogy

In our control system, scalability is akin to robustness. That is, if disturbed, or if the system changes, will the controller maintain the stability of the system? A Segway has a very robust controller. It will stand by itself on flat ground or on a hill, with weight on it or empty. If systems that are not scalable or robust are applied too broadly, it can be extremely dangerous.

28 29

Hart, Stuart. Pilloton, 15

Beyond the criteria of sustainability and scalability, there are several other indicators that can be used as a measure of project value. The most commonly used are the trinity of desirability, feasibility, and viability:

16

Viability indicates the economic worth of a system. It essentially asks whether or not a product pays for itself, and is a key measure of whether or not a solution will be financially sustainable.

Feasibility simply measures whether the technology can function as designed. It is unlikely, for instance, that Western-style derailleurs are a feasible solution to gear shifting for Indian rickshaws. They simply dont hold up to the harsh conditions of Indian roads during the dusty summers and monsoon winters. Clearly, technology must work in order for a project to succeed in a sustainable and scalable fashion.

Desirability is a measure of the excitement of the consumer about the product. If nobody wants it, the project will be neither scalable nor sustainable. The core problem with a large amount of international aid is the lack of interest in finding the most desirable solution. For example, I have watched Panamanian villagers be persuaded into trying a particular method of shellfish farming, in the end adopting an inefficient system against their will and better judgment. While it may last for a short time, the technology that was given to them will almost certainly be left to rust after a season or two of fishing.

Desirability

Viability

Feasibility

Figure 5: Only by fulfilling all of these criteria together can a venture maintain success in the long term. The three circles encompass human desire, economics, and technical possibility.

In general, the success of any appropriate technology project is determined by the amount it empowers a real person to succeed in their day-to-day life, its scalability, and its sustainability as a solution.

There are many different design methodologies and considerations that should be taken into account when creating appropriate technology. Having established a definition for success in the previous chapter, this section sets out some guidelines for acting to actually create a successful project. These are not be-all-end-all rules, but are merely suggestions for some major points to think on before embarking on a project. There are countless ways to make appropriate technology ventures achieve their success criteria. There is no magic bullet. There are, however, some general principles and design strategies that form the basis for creating successful projects. These principles are distilled from a variety of sources and experiences, and while this is not a complete list these are all generally good things to keep in mind.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
APPROPRIATE DESIGN PRINCIPLES

17

A Brief List of Appropriate Design Principles

Explicitly Identify Stakeholders and Value Proposition(s) identify everyone affected by a project, and understand what they will gain by supporting it. Use this information to pitch yourself in different ways in order to gather support from different stakeholders.

Build Capacity in general, it is always better to build the ability of the end-user to achieve their goals rather than create a product that achieves their goals without transferring ability. Utilize Untrained Experts people in the context of the end-user, however formally uneducated, are often extremely knowledgeable and provide an invaluable perspective on what is possible. Iterate Productively use low-cost, progressive test methods to be able to use limited travel and user-interaction time to the most benefit. Deliver a Top Quality Product hacked together products and half-baked ideas will not do much good for anyone. Focus on delivering a high quality, professional product.

Quantify Uncertainty nothing is ever certain when creating these types of technologies. It is important to understand which pieces of information are assumed and which are definite, and to actively work to verify assumptions.

EXPLICITLY IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDERS AND VALUE PROPOSITION(S)

A stakeholder is anyone who has an interest in the outcome of a certain project. Stakeholders can include the target end-user, the design team, local partners, community members and families, NGOs 30 operating in the same space, government officials and/or any number of other
For the engineer: NGOs are non-governmental organizations, generally non-profits. They do all kinds of work, all over the world.
30

For several reasons, this can put a design team in a tricky spot. On one hand, it is very difficult to please every stakeholder, and is often not possible. Occasionally, stakeholders have directly conflicting viewpoints which are difficult to resolve. 31 It is also often the case that something is the way it is because there is no value to the different stakeholders in changing it. It is also sometimes difficult to identify all of the stakeholders in a given situation, and certain types of stakeholders (NGOs, for instance) can react poorly to being cut out of a design process. 32

people or groups. A project generally has to deliver a value proposition to every stakeholder in order to be successful. This value proposition does not have to be monetary it simply has to include some type of improvement over what currently exists.

18

Strategy

It is rarely easy to please all stakeholders. When thinking about this problem, recognize that a product or venture can deliver very different value propositions to different people or organizations, and pitch accordingly. An additional consideration is that many appropriate technology projects involve creating a product that does not have an easy comparable 33, making the value proposition difficult to express. 34 Delivering clean water to an area without clean water, for instance, may improve the quality of life for residents but is difficult to compare to their current situation (especially if there is not a perceived problem with water quality). This inability to clearly express the added value of a technology can make it very difficult to persuade end-users to part with their hard-earned money.

QUANTIFY (AND BE COMFORTABLE WITH) UNCERTAINTY

It is common in this type of project to spend a lot of time working remotely from the context of the consumer. Even with a lot of local collaboration and conversation, it is easy to lose track of what aspects of a project are known and what aspects are simply assumed. Depending on his/her personal context, every designer has assumptions that may influence the outcome of a project. For this reason, it is important to identify and constantly update the assumptions that underlie the decisions being made. By quantifying uncertainty in this way it makes clear the aspects of a project that need further research and enables the remote team to continue iterating without being paralyzed by an ambiguous uncertainty. 35

This happened particularly with Promethean Power Systems, a for-profit milk chiller developer. They received investment to develop a system specifically with solar power, which ended up directly conflicting with the values of their customers. Resolving this direct conflict ended up influencing the company towards a compromised system which made neither stakeholder particularly happy. 32 See the later section on working in a busy space, especially with regards to the ADE Alabama example of stakeholder mis-identification. 33 A comparable, in this case, is designer jargon for a comparable or competing product. 34 As described by Dr. Ben Linder in ADE lecture, January 28th 2011. 35 Quantifying uncertainty is a constant point in Olins ADE curriculum and I can think of many teams that might have been helped significantly by remembering to do so.
31

19

Strategy
Keep a running list of assumptions or uncertainties, and try to use the iteration process to eliminate items.

BUILD CAPACITY
Building the capacity of the consumer is a key component of appropriate technology development. In many cases, the capacity referred to is an earning capacity. Creating extra income for a family may enable that family to pay for a better education for their children or to take better care of their health. It is recognized that increasing access to financial services can increase income and enable families to lift themselves out of poverty. 36 This is the fundamental reasoning behind micro-lending programs, and it is for this reason that many affordable design programs focus specifically on increasing employment and income generation instead of particular technologies. 37

In addition to finding ways to increase monetary capacity, it is important to create products that fall within the existing spending capability of the consumer. There are many ways to do this, but in particular there are many interesting success stories that involve breaking down ventures or products into bite size spending chunks. Rickshaw Bank, for instance, is able to sell rickshaws by creating a venture model that allows consumers to pay a small but significant amount of the price of their rickshaw each day. There are other examples where the products themselves are broken apart and modularly fit together the creation of solar electric capacity is a good example of a technology that lends itself to this technique. Educational initiatives provide another way to build capacity. By introducing new techniques or knowledge, a program can enable users to improve their lives by making slight changes in how they go about their lives. 38 The end result of this knowledge transfer is generally to increase income and monetary capacity, with the goal that this becomes a perpetual positive cycle. A great example of a product specifically designed to increase educational capacity is the One Laptop Per Child project. 39 An additional indirect way of building capacity is by developing tools that can be used by locals to develop technology for themselves. There are not many examples of true tool development being done in this space, but it is an intriguing possibility. This is discussed further in the tools and products section of this chapter.

Key Point

Capacity can take the form of earning capacity, useful skills, or any other method that can be used by an individual to help themselves.
http://www.kiva.org/about/microfinance ADE, for instance. 38 Many agricultural programs revolve around this kind of knowledge transfer. 39 They also provide a great description of their indirect goals on their website: http://laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtml.
36 37

UTILIZE UNTRAINED EXPERTS

20

As an engineer or designer working outside of the context you understand from your own experience, it is important to realize that even the most seemingly non-technical person in the context of your product is more of an expert than you are. 40 In short, you can learn from everyone. There is no philosophy of appropriate design that does not involve learning from users and other untrained experts, and there are countless examples of situations where these people have created beautiful technologies that defy even the best outside designer. 41

Figure 6: The streets of Delhi are filled with experts. It would be wise to get to know them. Photo is by the author.

Strategy

This pillar of appropriate design is perhaps one of the most rewarding parts of being an empathetic engineer. Ask questions of your users, talk to everyone and be taught by others. Being taught a skill by someone who does it for a living is a fantastic way to appreciate both their skill and their needs. It is also humbling. Realize that you are designing for your user, and not for yourself, and that what may make it easier for you to do their job is not necessarily what might help them. 42

When you are working outside of your own context, never stop asking questions. Absorb as much as possible, as fast as possible.

ITERATE PRODUCTIVELY
Rapid and productive iteration of the entire picture of a project is often critical to the success of projects developed remotely from the actual deployment context. Travel (and time with the end-user) is often a very scarce resource and can become a limiting factor if not used wisely. It
Pilloton, 20 Some particularly beautiful examples can be seen at http://www.mayapedal.org/. 42 This is not to say that designing for oneself is a bad idea at all in fact, in many ways it is the best thing you can do (because you already understand the context, you are able to do a better job).
40 41

is thus very important to effectively plan the use of your time while traveling (or otherwise interacting). 43

21

Strategy

Use a list of uncertainties and assumptions to guide your test planning. Develop flexible, realworld tests that answer real questions and can guide your design process. One recipe for productive iteration involves creating five cent, five dollar and fifty dollar tests for a given idea. This concept has been popularized by Andrew Hargadon. 44 In the very early stages of a product, it is often possible to prove or disprove an assumption through a very cheap test. These tests are referred to as five cent tests, and provide a way to reduce risk upfront. As ideas become more refined, more expensive tests allow the engineering team to further explore the nuances of the proposed projects and prove or disprove assumptions definitively. The final test, of course, is a full-blown prototype of the venture.

DELIVER A TOP-QUALITY PRODUCT (DONT REINVENT THE WHEEL)

Many programs that develop appropriate technology seem to interpret this as an excuse to develop technology that would be deemed inferior in their own context. This is not only unacceptable from a technology adoption perspective, but is fundamentally inappropriate. Endusers in all contexts can understand when they are being provided with top quality products and when they are being sold products that are sub-par, and there is a strong desire on the part of endusers to use technology that they are proud of. There are many types of quality a few of the most important are manufacturing quality, engineering quality, and the quality of the innovation, venture or design. It is important to recognize that all aspects of a product or venture need to be of high caliber, and it is not enough to simply start with a great idea.

Strategy

Look for existence proofs. If you are developing a new product or venture, your success is more likely if similar implementations already exist on the market. One way to ensure that a technology under development comes out with a high quality result is to ensure that the product is not a reinvention. It is very rare that a complete reinvention of any well-characterized system will come out more refined than existing products on the market. Rather than reinvent, it is better to adopt and adapt. Understanding the complete space of competing or existing products allows a team to select the best aspects of many products in order
It is somewhat of a side note, but the concept of soft failure is very interesting. A hard failure is obvious it could be the failure of a team to meet with people, or to get a project completed on time, or the failure of a deployed design. A soft failure, though, is the failure of a team to gather enough information to truly make a decision after traveling. Even though a trip may initially seem successful, it is possible that a failure to adequately engage could result in a later, softer failure. I was introduced to this idea by Ben Linder of Olins ADE lab. 44 http://andrewhargadon.typepad.com/
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to create their own. It is very rare to encounter a situation where a product does not have a competitor or an existence proof of a similar technology. If, by chance, it happens that there are no competitors, there is either no market or the market is wide open take your pick.

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Key Point

There is a well-known story of two shoe entrepreneurs who go to China to do market research. They find, to their surprise, that no one in China wears shoes. One entrepreneur comes home and laments that there is no market of shoe-wearers to sell to. The other entrepreneur returns with a smile on his face, knowing that if he can access it the market is enormous. Be optimistic! It is important that a project team be aware of their core competencies (their strongest assets and skills). Any team will deliver a high quality product if the product falls nicely into the categories that they understand. 45 However, it can be dangerous to focus exclusively on these instinctual results, as a narrow focus can result in the development of a slick product that does not actually provide a value proposition to every stakeholder.

TO PROFIT OR NOT TO PROFIT (MONETARILY)

At first glance, it seems odd that profit would be a motivator for doing social good. Yet many of the best non-profits are run like for-profit companies, and many for-profit companies also exist with the side effect (or explicit goal) of doing social good. Promethean Power Systems is an example of a for-profit enterprise that is fundamentally focused on appropriate technology and design. According to their website: Promethean Power Systems is a for-profit enterprise. We believe that creating a costeffective solution for cold-chain food distribution in emerging markets is an excellent business opportunity that could deliver enormous social and environmental benefits. 46

In Prometheans case, the focus on profitability provides a few major benefits to the enterprise. First, it gives a sense of urgency. Without showing profitability, the company will fail. This puts the onus on the engineers and the designers to come up with a quality, adoptable, cheap solution quickly. If the solution takes too long to implement, the company will fail without further funding. The products of a for-profit company must be actually worth purchasing for the end-user they are tested by the market.

Key Point

Deciding whether to run a venture as a charity or as a business can be an interesting choice. There is no defined rule for making the decision, and success stories exist from both regimes. Consider the options, and do what makes sense.

45 46

Look at the well-known Grameen Danone example for a good example of this. http://www.coolectrica.com/

There is another reason that for-profit companies can be a resource for helping those in need profitable companies tend to have money, and resources. Wielded correctly, these resources provide a means for undertaking projects that are more complex and R&D intensive then could be possible with the resources of an NGO. Harts book Capitalism at the Crossroads focuses on ways that companies can use their resources to generate more business opportunities through solving the worlds most difficult problems. 47 The differences that companies or public sector organizations enable can be quantitatively measured through accounting methods such as the triple bottom line (taking into account transactions in human, ecological and monetary capital or people, planet and profit for short). It should be noted that the use of these accounting methods is often criticized as being either too idealistic (harming the companies by not delivering monetary profit to their shareholders) or too publicity oriented (by only going light-green and not making a real difference) and both criticisms have some weight depending on the example. 48 Charity models are business models in which the target end-users do not pay for the resulting service or product. Whether run by for-profit or non-profit ventures, the model does not pay for itself and the funding source is not directly dependent on the adoption of the product (although it could be indirectly dependent on sales through some contractual obligation). This can actually be a really important aspect. It allows designers some freedom to iterate and experiment that is not easily accomplished in an environment where getting to market is key.

23

There are many criticisms of charity models. In particular, these models are criticized for being more polarizing (more us versus them), less market tested, and not sustainable in the long term. It is easy to develop a charity model that does not fix the root problems behind an issue, and the success of a charity project often does not include long-term economic viability. For these reasons, it is particularly important that the success criteria in Chapter 2 are considered carefully before implementing a charity model.

There is an interesting tension between projects that try to cast a very wide net and those that affect only a small number of people at once. An engineering parallel is the difference between product designers and architects, as described by Pilloton: Product designers are much less contextual and responsive than architects, for example, who usually have specific and singular programs, sites, and clients, and can thus better gauge the path between their actions and subsequent receptions. 49

CASTING A NET

Yet, product designers have a much more distributed power they can affect hundreds of thousands of people at one time, with a single product. They wield a very large double-edged sword. They can help or hurt many, many people at a time. They can also contribute to environmental problems very quickly by creating large amounts of waste the most oft-repeated example is possibly that of the IDEO designer who designed the first over-molded, disposable
Hart. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line, accessed April 28th, 2011. 49 Pilloton, 14
47 48

toothbrush for Oral-B. Later, walking on the beach, he noticed one of his toothbrushes floating in the water. He swore he would never create another toothbrush 50 and publicly apologized for his mistake. 51

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Analogy

The concept of net size fits very nicely into our control systems analogy. Some control systems are perfectly tailored to a single system, but fall apart when applied more broadly. Other control systems can control a wider variety of systems, but cant control any system perfectly. The amount to which a given control algorithm is tolerant of system unknowns and variation is called its robustness. The degree to which the algorithm succeeds reflects the stability of the controlled system. Technologies affecting many people at once (casting a large net) need to be very robust. That is, they must be very tolerant of situational differences between the different situations in which they are expected to work. It is very difficult (if not impossible) to design a technology that functions everywhere in a predictable way that improves peoples lives. For technologies implemented widely, it is also very difficult to track what is actually occurring and whether the applied technology is helping or hurting end-users. With this in mind, the next few paragraphs explore a few examples of technologies of varying robustness and net size.

When the system was designed, stakeholder input was sought and reacted upon. In this case, the primary stakeholders were the Indian dairy companies purchasing the system. Unfortunately, each dairy company wanted something slightly different in the final product. Their needs varied slightly by region, milk collection model, and countless other additional factors. The diversity of stakeholder input to the project resulted in several redesigns, and in the end the design of a system that no customer felt strongly about and that is not being widely adopted.

The Promethean Power example is a fascinating case study in the limitations of the robustness of a technology. The company developed a village-level milk chiller for rural Indian farmers. The product is functional and innovative, using a two-stage heat exchanger to rapidly cool the milk to a safe temperature using minimal energy. The buyers are the dairy cooperatives, a group that has significant desire and purchasing power. The technology allows the dairies to reduce fuel costs and reduce milk spoilage.

This variety of end-user needs was found across dairy companies in India, a single country (although admittedly a varied one). When further research was done in Panama to assess whether a similar technology could be implemented there, the result was a resounding no. Dissimilarities in dairy business models were one barrier, but the more important barrier discovered was cultural. Panamanian farmers have not generally adopted cooperative milk collection models, a key component of the Indian business model. Because of this difference, there are not end-users in
Of course, maybe he should just create a better toothbrush next time, to try and reverse the damage he already caused 51 http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/valerie-casey-introduces-the-designers-accord_b4581
50

Unfortunately, that local adaptability comes at a cost. In the case of the Peace Corps, one cost is monetary. It is very, very expensive to have a payroll large enough to support local volunteers in every location where they are needed. Another downside of a Peace Corps type model is that in many cases the input of the volunteer becomes integral to the success of their project. Although volunteers live in a community for two year stretches, it is sometimes difficult to maintain successful projects once those volunteers depart. In our analogy, the controlled input of the designer becomes critical to the stability of the system the system cannot function without this input. This is indicative of a poorly designed system, but is a common occurrence. Combating this cost of local uniqueness, there are a few projects which have tried to develop extremely general technologies that can be very widely implemented. One example is that of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, an inexpensive, low-power laptop developed by Nicholas Negroponte and his team. The project is not supposed to be developing a technology, per se. At its core, OLPC is developing a tool a means to learn. 53 This is a paradigm shift from the way many engineers consider technology development. Yes, most products are tools, in at least an economic sense. Successful appropriate technologies are all tools for escaping poverty, disease, and hunger.

To combat the difficulty of designing very robust technologies that can thrive in a variety of markets, there exist a category of system models that address highly local needs in a distributed fashion. An individual Peace Corps volunteer is an example of someone doing appropriate technology work that has a very small total impact (and a small net) yet the sum of all Peace Corps members is quite large. The network of Peace Corps volunteers is a robust model, because each individual can adapt to their environment in a very deep manner. Cross-pollination of ideas across the network of volunteers further strengthens the organization.

Panama that could afford the overhead of the chilling system and the technology is not viable in that context. 52

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DEVELOPING TOOLS

Yet not many projects develop real tools. A real tool helps the end-users develop their own products, creating local technology that is perfectly appropriate for a specific situation. OLPC is a tool for education, indirectly helping the users design products for themselves. In this way, OLPC provides a platform for sustainable development that is missing when outside companies come in with ready-built technology and sell it at cost. It must be mentioned that there is a fundamental chicken-or-egg problem with developing tools for appropriate technology development: the tools are probably also highly specific to local situations, so it may be equally as difficult to develop the tools as to develop the products in the first place. OLPC somewhat escapes this moral quandary by developing an educational system, a tool for tool design if you will. 54
From the authors research in Central America, particularly in the Azuero region of Panama. http://laptop.org/en/vision/mission/index2.shtml 54 Of course, there is still a chicken or egg problem it might be impossible to deliver an educational system for a specific context without already having tools in that context but you have to start somewhere.
52 53

OLPC is not perfect. 55 The project has faced strong criticism, particularly with regards to the unexpected consequences its implementation has created. As with any project that casts such a wide net, it has hurt some people at the same time that it has helped others. It has been behind schedule and over budget, with some critics pointing out that the academic types who have run OLPC have never run a real business. The project has also been criticized for encouraging leapfrogging, or the idea that developing markets should be able to skip (or leap over) inferior or less efficient technologies and move directly to the more advanced ones. 56 The cell phone is an obvious example. OLPC has been criticized for encouraging leapfrogging where it is not appropriate, particularly in communities where children have been provided with cutting-edge computers but lack basic sanitation or healthcare. 57

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Analogy

Returning to our control systems analogy, successful tool design is similar to the design of automated algorithms for control system design it allows non-designers/non-engineers to successfully implement complicated systems. Regardless of the problems that OLPC has faced, the tool development model makes a lot of sense. To loosely quote the Chinese proverb: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day teach him how to fish and you feed him for life. The goal for the development of these tools is to enable end-users to design their own products on a local level, escaping the need for foreign designers and creating more appropriate products.

Read http://www.fakesteve.net/2007/09/100-laptop-now-200-and-delayed-again.html. This is not a scholarly source by any means, but Fake Steve points out some interesting problems with OLPC. The difference between academic projects and real projects is enormous. 56 Pilloton, 18 57 Pilloton, 173
55

Even once a well-considered path has been laid out for a new idea or venture there are many pitfalls that can occur during project execution. This chapter provides a discussion of a few considerations that can be critical to the success of a project. This is by no means an exhaustive discussion, and is meant to be a starting point for thinking about how to implement an appropriate technology project. Unfortunately, even the most thought-out products will fail if nobody wants to use them. Adoption is the actual act of the end-user choosing to use a new technology. Particularly if your project is meant to be implemented far away (either culturally or physically) from the designers, adoption is a serious concern. It is unlikely that a foreign team will be able to fully grasp the context and unique design challenges of a particular space without years of cultural experience in the area. This is yet another reason to add a collaborative aspect to your team, but even with the addition of local team members adoption is difficult.

CHAPTER 4: IMPLEMENTATION
ADOPTION IS HARD (IN A GOOD WAY)

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Charity models avoid the challenge of getting their product in the users hands by giving it away. For this reason, the consumers have part of their choice made for them. There are no comparables that easily compete with a free solution, so any product has a decent chance of being used. Why not adopt a free technology? This model can be useful, particularly when there are not established comparable technologies as a benchmark or when the value of a solution has not been established in a particular area. 58 However, projects that are successful in the long term generally prove the adoption of a for-profit model in order to ensure that they are actually delivering a sensible and improved solution. I have personally seen examples of free technology that burdened a community with unnecessary maintenance and running costs and were eventually left to rust.

Key Point

Adoption is difficult, because it encompasses many aspects of a successful product. Having a product or service be adopted and used by the end-user, however, is a fantastic indicator of a well-designed system. Adoption is hard because the traits that make a product adoptable can vary significantly from place to place and user to user, even over a relatively small geographic divide. The Promethean Power example in Chapter 3 is a perfect example of the difficulty of adoption. The product was designed for the Indian dairy industry through the feedback of a few willing dairies. When going to sell the finished device, however, few dairies wanted it. Relying on the words of a few potential customers (and being dismissive of the potentially large differences across the

58 For instance, bringing clean water to a village that has never had clean water. There is no benchmarked value to the solution, so unless a compelling value proposition can be conveyed it is unlikely that a solution will be adopted at cost. Successful programs such as Water Health International provide an educational initiative in addition to simply providing water,

Getting users to embrace a product or venture is additionally complicated by cultural nuances. For example, a project team in Olins ADE class was working on a multi-gear system for bicycle rickshaws in Guwahati, a city in India. They arrived, logically, at the use of standard, cheap derailleurs for shifting. To their surprise, they discovered that derailleurs are not culturally accepted in Guwahati. They are perceived as unreliable and easily broken, possibly due to British influences over the bike design in the country or perhaps due to an actual reliability problem in monsoon season. Even the design of a bulletproof, derailleur-like system would likely face an uphill battle in getting users to adopt the product. By investing time doing user research on this cultural phenomenon, the project was able to change directions before wasting too much time in developing a standard shifting system. The end result was the adaptation of an antiquated gear-changing system known as retro-direct shifting. This reduced the chain movement problem and will hopefully be adopted by rickshaw pullers over the next few years. It is impossible to build a solid product without a skilled, multi-faceted team dedicated to the cause. Current teams are often comprised of design professionals, with end-users playing smaller collaborative co-design roles. In some educational models 59, teams are designed to include students working from the partner communities (although they are not necessarily the end user). The input of team members who are closer to the appropriate context is invaluable in making good design and engineering decisions.

market) led to the development of a product that was not actually sensible for enough users to make the manufacturing of the product worthwhile.

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BUILDING A TEAM

Strategy

As with any venture, building a good team is critical to a successful experience. Strike a balance between technical backgrounds and provide a compelling value proposition to each team member for their participation in a project. Each employee may have different priorities. While adding collaboration increases the odds of success, without a solid team it is unlikely a project will succeed. Enthusiasm can only go so far. In my personal experience, I have watched many engineering students leave college without realizing that there is a market for appropriate technology. They mistakenly conflate high-technology and technology, and do not see the upside to building simple devices. Yet, designing appropriate technology is not simple. Like designing the piston of a car engine, a single engineers contribution may be small; but it is the seamless fit of that small part into the larger system that makes the engineering both meaningful and difficult.

There is also a relatively distinct stereotype of young engineers and designers who create appropriate technology. These people are generally imagined as liberal, somewhat hippie dogooders wearing their Toms shoes. Obviously, not all engineers fit in this category: in fact, relatively few of them do, even among young and less traditional groups. For these reasons, there is
59

Particularly, the Olin ADE model.

A parallel situation has resolved itself on the business side of appropriate technology over the last several years. There has always been a desire to apply business principles for lasting positive change both in the large scale business setting 60 and in smaller scale social entrepreneurship ventures. Once the idea of for-profit social entrepreneurship took off, it started attracting more business talent. The fact that you could now do social good while making money was the deciding factor for a group of skilled employees who might otherwise have worked in more traditional industries. 61 They could now work in the area they desired without the perception of sacrificing anything. As the for-profit appropriate technology sector expands, the financial benefits will grow as well, allowing more engineers to follow their desire to help others through their work.

a stigma among many engineers that the field of appropriate technology is not really real engineering. It is a stigma that must be overcome, for without a perception of real engineering and technical challenge it becomes harder to attract new engineers to the field.

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LEVERAGING AND BUILDING CREDIBILITY

At times, the best way to proceed is not to forge your own path. No matter how perfect your technology or venture model may be, it is difficult and inappropriate to impose a solution on a community where you have no ties and no credibility. This is particularly difficult in student initiatives, since students tend to be inherently transient in working on projects and do not necessarily have the incentive to follow through to complete more than the coursework. 62

Leveraging an existing NGOs credibility to complete a project is a highly valid method for speeding adoption within a limited context. Working with Rickshaw Bank in northeastern India, for instance, one of the Olin ADE projects was able to leverage an existing factory and distribution framework for developing a two-speed rickshaw drive train. This saddled the project with the limitations that already existed in that context: limited manufacturing capability, a desire for extreme affordability, and existing connections within and preconceptions about the rickshaw industry. But if the technology works well, it will be adopted quickly by Rickshaw Bank and implemented on the rickshaws that they sell. In this case, trading a few extra constraints in order to more rapidly spread the technology will allow the project to make a quicker impact.

Strategy

When trying to make a real difference in the real world, it is often advantageous to embrace existing constraints and learn how to leverage them to everyones benefit.

Hart is a particular proponent of this. Haas, personal interview. 62 This is an overheard criticism of MITs D-Lab, where students often only work on projects for a single semester. It is something that Olins ADE model is trying to remedy through the creation of multi-year, persistent team projects.
60 61

While the Rickshaw Bank example provides a case where a partner relationship was necessary for the success of the project, this is not always the case. An ADE team working in Alabama provides us with a firsthand example of the difficulty of working through a missionoriented non-profit. In this case, the NGO had already established a sound but specific relationship with the community and filtered the design teams community interactions through this relationship. This relationship was built on the NGOs mission and tended to favor those who were receptive to being helped. As a result, the design team had a very difficult time understanding the true nature of the community and found it impossible to create a unique product-venture vision under the umbrella of their strongly mission-oriented partner. At this point, the engineers are faced with a decision to bow to the mission of their partner in order to build the relationship and create a lasting impact or to leave the community and find a new place to settle. 63

Many times the situation is not so clear cut. Another ADE project partnered with Rickshaw Bank is currently working to create a venture model for healthcare in very poor communities. Rickshaw Bank sells rickshaws: they are not experts in healthcare by any means. They initially surprised the team by making strong suggestions as to how to run the venture. Particularly, they Figure 7: Rickshaw Bank rickshaws lined up at a taxi stand, ready to take passengers. Their presence in the community is a huge lever for implementing suggested that care be new ventures. Photo is by the author. provided through a rickshaw service model. While initially skeptical, the team grew to grudgingly accept the idea of rickshaw distribution as an available way to rapidly prototype the venture model. By embracing this constraint, the team was able to be productive.

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Key Point

Appropriate technology products or services often fail (sometimes catastrophically). It is a very natural stage for a project, and is not a reason to shy away from attempting another such venture. Failure is an opportunity to learn.
63

Haas, personal interview.

WORKING IN A BUSY SPACE

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Every engineer or designer working in the appropriate technology space has a vision of what their ideal world is, hopefully somewhat informed by the views of the stakeholders involved. Yet even if those ideals are carefully considered, they can differ substantially between design teams because of team differences and nuances in how each team approaches the project. Working in a setting where other project teams have been or are currently working poses a unique set of challenges, particularly if the other teams definition of success is significantly different from your own. A major criticism of the NGO space is that it is an excessively fragmented array of organizations. Across the spectrum, you find similar groups working towards generally similar goals, although in slightly different ways. The traditional NGO methods of team formation and funding perpetuate this cycle each organization has to focus heavily and work hard in order to find grant funding for each specific project, and when they are funded the money is only supposed to go towards very narrow tasks. Haas suggests that this method of money allocation leads to excessive attachment over approaches, goals and partners in a project. 64

Strategy

Building a network of positive relationships is always a good idea. Well-maintained relationships open doors and expand what is possible in any context. The world is a busy place. It is unlikely that you will find yourself in a situation where NGOs do not comprise one or more of the stakeholders in your project. It isnt necessary to be a user or a designer to be a stakeholder a stakeholder can be anyone who is affected by a project. A simple method suggested to overcome the challenge of an excessive number of NGO stakeholders is dual pitching selling your relationship to stakeholders who do not stand to benefit monetarily in addition to pitching for money in the standard sense. 65 It is vitally important to remember that a successful venture delivers a sensible value proposition to every stakeholder, even to the external organizations only tangentially related to the project. There are many examples of projects failing due to a lack of understanding of all stakeholders, and NGOs can be particularly difficult to understand with their relatively complicated hierarchy and diverse attachments and goals. 66

Haas, personal interview. Haas, personal interview. 66 An example of this took place on the ADE Alabama trip this year, when the design team did a meticulous amount of work to understand all the stakeholders surrounding their value-added foods project. Unfortunately, they missed a key player the direct boss of their main contact. Although they had great relationships with all of their other contacts, the missing player felt threatened and nearly took over a key meeting with a food distributor. It took nearly a week to carefully rebuild from the damage caused by this interruption. Lesson learned: study the stakeholders for a project with extreme care.
64 65

In writing this guide, I have tried to compile the results of my limited experience into a form that will be useful to an engineering student interested in helping others. As I discussed in the introduction, I believe that engineering should be more than mechanics and materials and controls: it should include the human component. The swing towards including humanity is already starting to happen in engineering education, and by the end of the next decade, I predict (and hope) that nearly all engineering students will graduate college having been exposed to appropriate technology work however briefly. In my idealistic vision of the future, engineering for appropriate technology will be taught on par with staple classes such as mechanical design. Both classes discuss complex interactions in different types of systems, and they should be treated similarly. It is important to recognize that appropriate technology work can be everything that traditional engineering is: challenging, stimulating, and financially stable while also being much more. Developing appropriate technology can be deeply rewarding, and provides an opportunity to understand more thoroughly the relationships between people and the world.

MOVING FORWARD

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To improve lives today, and to teach and inspire tomorrows students, the graduates of today must go forth. We must step into the world as global citizens and help those in need. Developing appropriate technology is not always easy, but it is necessary, and fun. I wish you the best of luck.

Figure 8: Children posing for a picture in the streets of Pune, India. Thanks for reading! Photo is by the author.

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